KUALA LUMPUR, July 21 — Malaysia must make proficiency in English its top priority if local businesses are to thrive globally, prominent banker Datuk Seri Nazir Razak said today.

In a caption accompanying his Instagram post, the chairman of the country’s second-largest bank CIMB cautioned that the current workforce was losing its competitive edge due to poor mastery of the language, echoing similar warnings by opposition lawmakers previously.

“English is the global language and as a nation we should declare English language proficiency as our top priority.

“It’s a traditional edge that our workforce is losing fast; we must reverse the deterioration now,” he wrote as a caption on the photo-sharing app accompanying a snapshot of a June 30 Bloomberg report headlined, “Honda to Set English as Official Language.”

He added that enforcing the use of English to boost its command would not cause the national language to suffer or be forgotten.

“(And no, it does not mean we have to neglect bahasa!)” he wrote.

A screen capture showing Datuk Seri Nazir Razak's latest post on his instagram account.

Nazir, who is also the prime minister’s brother, has been an active user of social media, often using the photo-sharing site to comment on national issues including the corporate governance of controversial 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

English proficiency in Malaysia has been questioned in recent months, most recently when Johor ruler Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar reportedly called to emulate Singapore’s single-stream education system that uses as its medium English, the world’s lingua franca, saying that such a policy will foster racial integration and produce a united and harmonious society.

DAP’s Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming in March also pointed out statements made by the Prime Minister’s Office contained grammatical errors, refuting Deputy Education Minister P. Kamalanathan claim that the standard of English in Malaysia is better than that of Singapore’s.

A Forbes contributor also pointed out on March 27 that Malaysians’ deteriorating command of English and education system has left its workforce vulnerable to regional competitors that are both cheaper and improving.

This came after Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyididn Yassin said he was “shocked” that Malaysian students continue to lag behind global counterparts despite Malaysia spending as much on education as some developed nations such as the United States.

Last year, Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, expressed bafflement at local students’ inability to master English despite nearly two decades of education.